Unlike the Yugoslavs, the Zimbabweans have yet to develop an effective culture of mass protest
Iden Wetherell It has been called “the Milosevic effect”. But comparisons with Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic’s fall from power may be premature. Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare, was this week the scene of riots over food prices. Bread has gone up by 35%, the second increase in less than three months. The violence started on Monday in Mabvuku and Tafara on the city’s eastern periphery and spread to other townships on Tuesday. On Wednesday it was the turn of Dzivaresekwa on the city’s western fringe. Running battles between stone-throwing protesters and police resulted in extensive damage to property, looting and arrests. The army was called in on Tuesday to help restore order. Roads were littered with rubble and burnt-out vehicles where protesters had erected barricades. On Wednesday troops assaulted four journalists covering the turmoil. The police, whose poor discipline and blanket use of tear gas have contributed to public outrage, are accused of arbitrary beatings, including a severe assault on Mabvuku MP Justin Mutendadzamera and his wife Hilda. They accused the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) MP of inciting the protests, a charge he strenuously denies. Harare’s townships, which last erupted in food riots in 1998, saw an MDC landslide in the June parliamentary election. But the party repudiates as scurrilous attempts by Minister of Information Jonathan Moyo to link the current protests to MDC calls for President Robert Mugabe’s removal. The party’s leadership says it has the capacity to organise mass protests but won’t give Mugabe a pretext to declare a state of emergency.
The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions has identified poverty as the root cause of the disturbances. With inflation at more than 60%, prices of food and transport are rising weekly. Prices went up by a third this month alone.
Government-inspired farm invasions have compounded the economic crisis as production declines. Despite MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai’s reference to Mugabe as “Africa’s Milosevic”, the parallels can be misleading. Mugabe has indeed triggered the current unrest by a combination of political arrogance and economic mismanagement. Growing popular resentment of a tyrant long past his sell-by date is palpable. But unlike Yugoslavia and Indonesia, the culture of mass protest in Zimbabwe has yet to mature.
In Belgrade and Jakarta hundreds of thousands took to the streets. People power became an irresistible force. This week’s riots were not the product of a well- organised political movement. They were the spontaneous response of an angry urban under-class to the depredations of a self- serving political elite. This is arguably as dangerous to Mugabe as the disciplined working-class battalions of the MDC, which inflicted so much damage on his Zanu-PF party in the June election. But the disparate forces have yet to effectively coalesce.
Civic groups have been urging precisely the mass mobilisation that brought Indonesian president Suharto and Milosevic down. But police have proved effective in attacking and breaking up peaceful protests in the past. In April they colluded with war veterans to break up a march against violence. Last year they used tear gas and batons to disperse lawyers demonstrating against lawlessness outside Parliament. But despite this week’s eruption of raw anger, Zimbabwe is not Yugoslavia – yet, commentators say. “The timing may be close. The hostility is similar, but the contexts are very different,” notes political scientist John Makumbe. “To expect the Zimbabwe situation to get to Yugoslavia’s is stretching the imagination.”
Zimbabweans do not have the capacity to sustain a civil revolt against Mugabe, Makumbe points out. He believes Zimbabwe’s 76-year-old leader is more likely to be removed by colleagues who see him as a liability, or failing that, in the 2002 presidential poll. For the present at least he is secure. But the forces massing against him look formidable. In December, the Zanu-PF central committee will meet ahead of a special congress to decide whether the issue of his succession can be raised in open session. In the past attempts to air the subject have been blocked. Next week Minister of Finance Simba Makoni is due to present his maiden budget to Parliament. Donors such as the International Monetary Fund are looking for signs of fiscal prudence. But with pressure from Mugabe’s supporters for a price freeze and precious foreign currency siphoned to Zimbabwean forces in the Congo, Makoni’s room to manoeuvre is limited. The message for Zimbabweans in the short term is not encouraging: expect more of the same. That could well be the reply from the streets as well.